Donahue smiled briefly. ‘You’ve never heard of Omega because you’re not cleared for it,’ he said. ‘In fact, nobody in the Bureau’s cleared for it except me. That’s why the Procedures file is still sealed, and it’ll stay sealed until I’m certain I need to open it and implement the measures it specifies.’
McGrath was still frowning. ‘But what’s so special about Omega?’ he persisted.
Donahue shook his head. ‘Trust me, Bill. You really don’t want to know. Now, what happened?’
Las Vegas, Nevada
She hadn’t come to Vegas to work as a hooker, but that was how she’d ended up. Not down on the streets with the other sad relicts of humanity, but working the hotels and casinos, living off the euphoria and winnings of the men – and sometimes the women – who had been attracted by the bright lights and the money.
Carol Class – her real surname was Leischmann, but she’d dropped that as soon as she’d started working the Strip – was known to all the doormen and bouncers: they’d nicknamed her the ‘Class Act.’ They let her through their doors for twenty bucks a time to look for Johns, and if she had a good night they might get another twenty or even a fifty from her when she left.
She had few regular customers. She preferred the passing trade because the winners, and even the losers, were usually more generous, and there were never any serious complications if she walked out of the hotel room with a watch or ring, or maybe a wallet, that didn’t actually belong to her.
Carol’s greatest asset was that she didn’t look like a hooker. Her eyes were wide and such a deep brown they appeared almost black, and her shoulder-length auburn hair framed a face of serene beauty and a flawless complexion. Her figure had curves in all the right places, and she invariably wore elegant designer clothes when she was working. She looked like a successful businesswoman, and many of her clients hadn’t realized what she was until after they had invited her up to their hotel bedrooms.
Only once had that ever been a problem. She had taken off her jacket and was unbuttoning her blouse when she told the John her fee. The man had stopped dead in his tracks, turned red in the face and began shouting abuse at her. She thought it was probably the implied insult that he should have to pay for something he thought he was getting for free. She’d shrugged, put her jacket back on, and got out of the room fast. The John had chased her all the way down the corridor, and the elevator doors had closed only seconds before he reached them. She’d gone straight home, and hadn’t gone back to work in Vegas for five days, just in case.
In recent months, Carol Class had actually begun to realize that she preferred women to men – Janes rather than Johns – so when the well-dressed woman at the casino bar smiled at her, Carol smiled back. Three minutes later, they were sitting together and talking over Martinis, eyeing each other with cool appraisal.
FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
‘Briefly,’ William McGrath said, ‘we have a dead man in a field near a place called Beaver Creek – that’s in Western Montana on the eastern slopes of the Rockies – who’s been killed by having a human thigh-bone driven vertically downwards through the top of his skull. There were no footprints anywhere near the body, apart from those of the deceased, and the dead man was armed with a hunting rifle and a heavy-calibre pistol.’
McGrath paused and looked across at Donahue.
‘You have to remember, sir, that this report has come direct from the Helena Resident Agency, but before the incident was investigated, so what we have is based entirely on what the local law enforcement officers reported. Once our agents have looked into it, it’s quite possible that other facts may emerge which clarify things.’
Donahue grunted. ‘By “clarify”, I assume you mean make less weird?’ McGrath nodded. ‘Who’s the Senior Resident Agent at Helena?’
‘John Michaelson,’ McGrath said, checking his notes.
‘Don’t know him,’ Donahue murmured. ‘Which officers are investigating it?’
McGrath looked down at the sheets of paper. ‘Special Agent Christy-Lee Kaufmann took the initial call,’ he said, ‘and went out to Beaver Creek in response, so at the moment she’s heading up the investigation. Her partner is a man called Steven Hunter, and he’s not actually a member of the Bureau.’
Donahue looked up sharply. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He’s British, and he’s over here as part of the exchange program. You remember – the Bureau started this a few years ago to give our agents experience working with other law enforcement agencies around the world. This guy Hunter is one of three non-Americans we have working here in the States at the moment.’
‘That could be real awkward,’ Donahue murmured.
‘Awkward, Director? Why?’
‘Never mind,’ Donahue said. ‘Have you pulled their files?’
McGrath nodded, opened the first personnel file and took out a sheet of paper on which he had made some brief notes. He looked up inquiringly and Donahue nodded.
‘Kaufmann’s been in the Bureau for nearly seven years, and Helena is her first assignment. Her annual assessments have been consistently good. She’s enthusiastic and imaginative, and she’s been seconded to a number of previous homicide investigations. I think she’ll handle this well.’
Donahue grunted and took a drink of his coffee. ‘And this Hunter guy?’
McGrath shook his head. ‘He’s not a Bureau Special Agent, so all we have about him is a biographical summary from London’s New Scotland Yard – that’s the headquarters of –’
‘I do know what New Scotland Yard is, Bill,’ Donahue interrupted.
‘OK,’ McGrath said. ‘He’s forty-two years old, spent most of his career as an officer in the British Royal Navy, and entered law enforcement just over four years ago. He holds a rank equivalent to a police inspector over here, and he’s been with the Bureau about eighteen months.’
He stopped, and Donahue looked at him. ‘And?’
‘And nothing. That’s pretty much it. Apart from the usual contact details for his people back in London.’
‘Who does he work for? The Metropolitan Police?’
McGrath looked at the file again. ‘Yes, but it doesn’t say which branch.’
Donahue sat musing for a few moments. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said, finally. ‘I don’t like not knowing more about this guy and I particularly don’t like somebody with a military background who reaches the rank of police inspector within three years. Get onto London and get a full bio sent out immediately.’
‘You think he’s a spook?’ McGrath asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Donahue said, ‘so we need to find out, quickly. OK, Kaufmann. What about her family?’
‘Family?’ McGrath asked.
‘Family,’ Donahue repeated. ‘Kaufmann – is she married, or what?’
McGrath glanced back at his notes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s twenty-eight and still single. Her parents are both dead. They were killed in a car crash out in San Diego about four years ago. She has one sister, who lives in Cedar City. She’s almost five years younger than Kaufmann, and she’s been a widow for two years. Her husband was a policeman in Los Angeles. He had a massive coronary at the age of twenty-seven and was dead before he even reached the hospital.’
‘What about the law enforcement side? Who called this one in?’
McGrath consulted his notes again. ‘The sheriff of Beaver Creek alerted the Resident Agency at Helena,’ he said. ‘We have nothing on him yet except his name – Richard Reilly.’
‘How did the message reach us?’
‘Standard procedure, Director. The Helena Resident Agency staff emailed details of the initial report to the Salt Lake City Field Office at close of business, and they sent it to us.’
‘Who else knows about this?’ Donahue asked.
‘There’s no mention of any other personnel, but it’s safe to assume that there will be at least one civilian involved – the
person who found the body – plus various deputies, a local doctor, a mortician and maybe a photographer.’
‘So we’re looking at, what, maybe ten or twelve people in total who might know about this already, including the agents on the scene, but not counting Bureau staff here or at Salt Lake City?’
McGrath nodded. ‘About that many, I guess. Why? Is it important?’
‘It could be,’ Donahue answered. He drained the last of his coffee, grimaced as he tasted the bitter dregs, and tossed the paper cup into the waste basket beside his desk.
For a few minutes he said nothing. He read through the information McGrath had brought with him, and glanced at the personnel files. Then he jotted some notes on a scratch pad and leaned back in his chair.
‘OK,’ he said, finally. ‘It seems unlikely, but it is barely possible that some more or less logical explanation for this might be forthcoming once our agents have looked into it. In that case, we can forget about it.’
Donahue paused.
‘My gut feeling, for what it’s worth, is that there won’t be any such explanation, and we’ll have to run the procedures. Let me know as soon as Kaufmann checks in with the Helena Resident Agency – she should do that later today. Don’t make a big thing of it, but tell the Montana staff to get as much as they can out of her, and then you brief me.’
The Director looked across at McGrath, who was looking distinctly puzzled.
‘Bill,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything about Omega, now or later. All I can say is that you are to accord this incident, and any documentation generated about it, the highest possible security classification – that’s Top Secret/Omega, your eyes and my eyes only. And until this incident is resolved, one way or the other, it is to be your highest priority task. All other considerations are secondary.’
Las Vegas, Nevada
The blonde woman at the bar – she had introduced herself simply as ‘Suzanne’ – glanced round. The tables and slot machines were only feet from where they sat, and the constant clattering of the drums was loud and intrusive.
‘It is rather noisy here,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps we could continue our talk in my suite?’
The question, and all it implied, dangled in the air between them. Carol Class looked at her companion. The woman was about thirty, she guessed, well dressed and impeccably made-up. There was a kind of look in her eyes that told Carol she knew exactly what she was about, and suggested a lot of experience. This one, Carol thought, would probably be a lot of fun. If she was, Carol might even give her a freebie.
‘I’d like that,’ she said, and smiled gently.
The two women walked over to the elevator beyond the bar. When the doors closed, Carol reached out tentatively for Suzanne’s hand, and was rewarded with a reassuring squeeze.
The suite was on the fifteenth floor, large and spacious. The room was dominated by the huge bed, and had a sitting area next to the picture window with a table and two chairs. The door to the bathroom was next to the main door, opposite the closets.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Suzanne asked.
Carol shook her head.
‘No, thank you. At least, not yet. But perhaps we could make ourselves more comfortable?’
It was Suzanne’s turn to smile. She reached out for Carol’s hand and led her towards the bed.
Beaver Creek, Western Montana
Alan Parker had been qualified as a doctor for more years than he cared to remember, but he had forgotten when he had last seen a live patient. His specialty was forensic pathology, and he had been retained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly twelve years. He worked in fields and woods, looking at the rotting debris left by killers and rapists, and in mortuaries where he extracted every available piece of evidence from decomposing corpses.
Kaufmann had requested a specialist from Helena pretty much as soon as she had seen the body in the field, and the Agency staff had paged Doctor Parker. He had been unable to leave Helena until mid-evening, and didn’t reach Beaver Creek until a little after midnight.
His first call was at the sheriff’s office, and ten minutes after he had told the deputy who he was, he was following a cruiser through the deserted streets to the Rest-A-While Motel.
Parker knocked on Hunter’s door at twelve forty. The Englishman was still up and dressed, sitting in one of the living room chairs in front of the closed and curtained window. Christy-Lee Kaufmann was lying on the bed, eyes shut, but still awake and fully dressed.
‘Glad to see you, doctor,’ Hunter said, checking Parker’s identification and extending a hand. ‘I’m Steven Hunter and this is Special Agent Christy-Lee Kaufmann.’
Christy-Lee bounced off the bed and shook Parker’s hand. The pathologist was looking at Hunter with a puzzled expression on his face.
‘I know, I know,’ Hunter said. ‘If I stay over here much longer I’m going to have to take elocution lessons. I’m British, not American, and I’m not FBI. But you can treat me as if I was.’
Christy-Lee nodded agreement. ‘Coffee, or can I get you something stronger?’ she asked.
‘Alan Parker,’ the pathologist replied. ‘No, nothing, thank you. I stopped for a late dinner on the road. The deputy –’ he gestured towards the door, beyond which they could hear the sound of the police cruiser accelerating away, ‘– seemed to think this case was somewhat unusual.’
Christy-Lee Kaufmann snorted in amusement.
‘That,’ Hunter said, with a thin smile, ‘is one way of putting it. Please have a seat.’
Parker sat down in one living room chair and Hunter in the other. Christy-Lee resumed her recumbent position on the bed.
‘The local sheriff described this as a murder that couldn’t happen, and he wasn’t kidding,’ Hunter began. ‘A heavily-armed man out hunting was killed by having a human thigh-bone driven vertically downwards through the top of his head. The force involved was so great that the local doctor thinks maybe six to eight inches of the bone penetrated the skull.’
Parker’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.
‘And to complicate matters from our point of view as the investigating officers, there were no footprints anywhere near the body, apart from those of the deceased himself.’
Parker smiled, and shook his head. ‘I can’t comment on the lack of footprints – that’s strictly a matter for the Bureau and the local law enforcement officers – but my initial reaction is that the sheriff was quite right. A human thigh-bone can make quite a serviceable club, but not a dagger or spear. What you’ve described simply can’t happen, because both ends of the thigh-bone – the femur – are rounded. Which end penetrated the skull?’
Hunter paused, and Christy-Lee answered. ‘The lower end – the knee joint. The hip joint is real distinctive, and I remember seeing that at the other end of the bone.’
‘OK,’ Parker said. ‘The knee joint is the heavier end of the femur – I mean, if you were going to use a thigh-bone as a club you’d naturally pick it up by the hip joint end – but that makes what happened even more unlikely, because the lower end of the bone is extremely blunt. The only way it could penetrate a human skull is if somebody cut off the knee joint and then sharpened the shaft of the femur. Had that been done?’
‘We’ve no idea,’ Hunter said. ‘The body was removed to the local mortuary intact, with the bone still in place.’
‘OK,’ Parker said, ‘just outline the circumstances for me. The location of the incident, how the body was discovered, that kind of thing.’
‘Right,’ Hunter replied. Parker opened up his briefcase, pulled out a notebook and ballpoint, and sat forward attentively as Hunter went through the incident in chronological order. Ten minutes later the pathologist looked at his watch.
‘Well, there’s not much I can do tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ve never actually heard of a truly impossible murder, but from what you’ve told me this might just qualify. I think the autopsy’s going to be real interesting. OK, I guess I’ll
get to bed now,’ he added, and stood up. ‘The sheriff’s office booked me a room here. I’ve asked the deputy to organize a car to take me to the mortuary at nine tomorrow morning – or rather this morning,’ he amended. ‘I should have the preliminary results for you by lunchtime.’
‘This motel seems to have a reasonable restaurant,’ Kaufmann said. ‘How about we meet here at around one?’
Parker nodded agreement, and left the room.
‘Perhaps, Christy-Lee,’ Hunter said, as he closed the door behind Parker, ‘he’ll get us some answers, because I really don’t have any idea what’s been going on here.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied, ‘but I somehow think he’ll just give us a bunch more questions.’
Las Vegas, Nevada
Fifty minutes after Carol Class and Suzanne had skilfully undressed each other and slid into the big bed, Carol was sound asleep. This was partly due to the two massive orgasms that Suzanne – making love with a skill that left Carol both breathless and envious – had induced in her, and partly because of the post-coital cigarette that Suzanne had offered her. The cigarette had been laced with a cocktail of chemical sedatives which ensured sleep would follow rapidly.
As soon as Carol’s body relaxed and her breathing became deep and regular, Suzanne removed the cigarette stub from between the unconscious woman’s fingers and got out of the bed. She pulled a wrap around her, then reached for the telephone and dialled the number of a nearby room.
Three minutes later there was a gentle knock at the door. When Suzanne opened it, a middle-aged man smiled briefly at her, glanced up and down the corridor, then entered. He was slightly overweight and balding at the temples, wearing a dark suit and carrying a black bag slightly larger than a briefcase. He put it down and looked with undisguised carnal interest at the unmoving naked figure lying on the bed.
Trade-Off Page 4
